CGI vs Practical
 

Well, I keep bringing this up in other topics, so I may as well make it its own topic.

How do you guys all feel about CGI in Sentai? Do you prefer practical effects or CGI? How much of each do you think is the perfect amount?

To go along with this, what are the least CGI-heavy shows that have come along since it became commonplace? I'm not a big fan of CGI in Sentai, so it's hard finding shows I can actually enjoy. Any suggestions here would be great.

The only timed I liked CGI in any Sentai was Gokaiger.

I like CGI because it makes formerly impossible shots possible. While practical effects for the mecha are always great, and I love them with all my heart, there's only so many occasions where you can see a mecha swing a sword with a bright light effect attached to it before it just becomes a total bore.

I do get angry when mecha fights just turn into a CG wankfest for 5 minutes, but when used to compliment a fight so the mecha has more life to it, I'm all good.

This one is tough but I'd go with CGI

Pretty much this. A bit of CGI can be okay, but when the entire fight is CGI I'm not a fan. Though, I wouldn't mind if mech fights were toned down a bit so less CGI would be required. For example, the episode of Kyoryuger I watched earlier had the mech jumping up the side of a building, and it was all done with CGI. To be honest...I'd be perfectly fine if they had excluded that and replaced it with a nice shot of the practical suit.

I used to only watch the older stuff, where mech battles were basically the two guys in suits walking past each other, turning around, and walking past each other again. Now that I've given more recent stuff a fair chance, having a few CGI touches does improve the fights a lot. I still maintain that the fights should be done with practical effects for the majority of it. Ninninger is a perfect example of a CGI vs practical balance to my liking.

Well if we are being honest CGI in most tokusatsu looks pretty bad. Although sometimes it can look pretty decent and can add more to a fight, but Ultraman X has shown that practical can still look good and CGI should be used as a last resort/effect for transformations and attacks.

practical all the way, cg in toku looks awful. CG explosion kinda make me cringe everytime I see it in KR series. CG also the reason I kinda dislike den-o, dat train battles

I also prefer that box costume for mecha in sentai rather than over the top movement of CG mecha, I can get the point that CGs are needed for gattai sequence, but I kinda prefer they do it old school like in Zyuuranger

Practical because it looks more real. CG in Japanese special effects movies and shows always look bad expect for a few.

Practical effects are what make Toku Toku for me, so I prefer that. CGI is okay if they use it for small details. Like the effects for the transformation or small shots like Dekarobo spinning and holstering his gun. That’s okay.

Completely animated sequences however are not. If there’s no real human somewhere in these shots it looks awful. Like the usual toy-demos, these tend to look extremely bad.

Well designed suits with talented stuntmen and handmade effects will always beat computer effects, always.

Practical every time. CGI is best used to enhance an effect rather than to do it altogether.

Practical all the way. With maybe a bit of CG to make it look better.

It depends on how well they balance the usage of both methods.

This, pretty much. There are some pretty neat moments for both of them, but also awful ones. It's always a pain to see the poor suit actor trying to move in one of those clusterfuck robos in Super Sentai. Engine-Oh G12 and all his crazy gattai friends look better in CG animation because you don't have the feeling that the person inside is struggling and it gives the mech the agility a robot should have.
What I really hate about CGI except from that horrible fighting scene at the end of Movie Taisen Ultimatum is the CGI explosions though. The Gaim soccer movie had this scene where Gaim was riding a horse through a sea of explosions and some of them looked as if they would instantly kill the two if they were real based on how they were placed. And it felt like a stretch that a horse could stand so many of those and so close without going completely nuts and ultimately running for it.

The best looking CG that I seen in a Japanese live action film is the Space Battleship Yamato live action movie from a few years ago. Even the best looking CG in Kamen Rider still looks meh at best. Japan should stick with practical effects in my opinion.

Well, that's most likely due to budget and deadline reasons. Of course the CGI in a planned out, relatively high-budget film is higher than in a weakly kids show that's part of an on-going franchise.
If we didn't have CGI in toku though, many shows couldn't have been realized the way they were and I think that would be a loss. Also, even though it's not jaw-dropping, the CGI did improve over the years- you can only learn by practicing, after all.

Honestly, I think CGI is an improvement to tokusatsu, but only when used to complement the practical effects, not replace them in its entirety.

When I watched the pre-CGI era liveman, I put many of the mecha battles on fast forward, as they felt really identical to each other: Just two giants wrestling for a bit and then the robot using stock footage as finisher.
Part of the appeal in newer tokusatsu is the hero(es) unlocking new abilities/weapons/mecha from time to time. CGI has the power to make these abilities look distinct from each other, making many of the fights unique.

A good example for me is Kamen Rider Ryuki. While the early CGI looks bad, it does give each rider and his contract monster a unique fighting style. Compare the rather graceful style of Ryuki to the more pragmatic and ranged style of Zolda, which are both accentuated with CGI. In this case, the CGI is used to complement the battles, as the Riders are still people in suits fighting each other.

An example where CGI just went plain wrong was the third season of Garo, Garo Yami o Terasu Mono, as all of the heroes' armored forms and monsters were CGI creations, instead of real suits. The exception is a cameo of the original Garo suit near the end. In this case, the CGI almost fully replaces the practical effects, ruining the illusion these characters are 'real'.

To conclude: I consider CGI an improvement for tokusatsu when it is used to complement the battles. If the creators don't use CGI, we'd still be stuck with wrestling matches between boxy robots and monsters, finishing the fight with the same stock footage every episode.

I thing CGI improves and the right amount makes it awesome. The only example I can say of a good amount is gokaiger or possibly ninninger.

Honestly, I didn't get very far in Gokaiger because there was too much CGI. I couldn't enjoy the fights because I felt like I was watching nothing. It all just felt so fake and insubstantial because of how much CGI there was.

I really don't see your reasoning there.

I'm pretty sure you're talking about the robot fights because the main fights didn't have much hell the whole series didn't have much outside the zangyack, final wave, robot, and a few other scenes. Now for my gasp. * Gasp * Don't speak such blasphemy

I remember the monsters being pretty CGI-enhanced, and having a lot of CGI attacks and stuff. Then again, it was a while ago - I could have exaggerated it in my mind...

But I was mostly referring to the mech fights. Maybe one or two shots of suits mixed in with tons of CGI. They say it's cheaper to do CGI, so why even bother making the suits if you're not going to use them?

Well the suits are still needed because too much CGI is bad and the suit shots are still useful due to the monsters being in suit and everyone wants to see the suit fights with hints of CGI. Wow i'm only fifteen and I sound like a business man

Are you really letting Gokaiger's 2 minute mecha fights be the reason you stop watching it entirely? Because most of Gokaiger's action is about showing off the legacy suits, while the mecha fights are just "Current toy on the shelves final attack!" and then immediately end...

Well, yes, since the mecha fights are one of the big draws of Sentai for me. But while we're on the topic, I found the constant suit switching in Gokaiger grating, especially since I really love their standard suits and wanted to see more of them.

I'm all for the suits. Maybe a better question is "if they have the suits, why didn't they use them more?"

Because they want to give the illusion of these robots can do crazy flips and stuff and are boss

I mean, I get why they use CGI...but if it's so expensive to do practical effects, why don't they try to get their money's worth out of those suits and use them more? Or does even filming it in motion cost more?

Maybe if you watched more Gokaiger, you'd get to see more of those suits. Believe it or not, they use their normal suits a lot. Most suit switches kind of follow the same trend:
Marvelous: "Let's use -Blank-"
*Changes*
*Uses -Blank's- team finisher*
*Changes back*

While there are special occasions, a lot of the Gokai Changes are summed up like that.

I'm not pleading you to rewatch Gokaiger (I, personally, only found it average), but it just seems like you put too much emphasis on one problem to the point where you're judging entire series based on it.
*GaoKing does a CG backflip*
"Whelp, this series is shit. Someone recommend another."

How much of Gokaiger have you seen? Yes there is CGI, but every toku has that now, and Gokaiger I remember had some pretty awesome practical stuff. It's more modern toku, if just a tad of CGI is enough for you to think an entire show is shit, I don't know what to tell ya.

The whole reason I mentioned Gokaiger was because somebody else said they thought it was a great blend of CGI and practical. I thought it was still too much CGI. I know I didn't make it past the 10 episode mark, but 90% of the mech fights in those episodes were CGI, and the street-level fighting had tons of CGI enhancements too. Personally, I don't want to see them jumping around buildings and doing flips if it means that they're going to CG it, which makes it hard for me to get into the newer shows. Now, on top of this, I was fairly new to Sentai, so most of the tribute episodes meant a whole lot of nothing to me. Between that, the suit switching (which I found annoying, despite being a fan of the older suit designs), and the CGI, I didn't see a lot of reason to keep going with the series. I'll probably give it another shot sometime, when i've seen more Sentai and am more used to the newer, CGI-heavy stuff. As of right now, i'd probably have less of a problem with it, but it was still too much CGI for me.

Now, I feel like I've said all I have to say on the topic, so I'm going to let everybody else say what they like/dislike about CGI and practical effects.